Balancing Activism and Everything Else with Christina Mazzi

This is what Christina Mazzi says when you ask her where she wants to go next. And at 15 years old, she’s already halfway there.

In June 2018, she founded Project WOC—a colloquial acronym for “women of color”—which she defined as “a Snapchat based community organization aiming to inspire and empower young girls of color all over the world.”

She and her Vice President, 16-year-old Ieasha Dicabral, reach out to women and girls of color all over the world who then take over the Project WOC Snapchat and Instagram accounts to share their stories and to walk Project WOC’s audience through a day in their lives.

“I am a young woman of color living in America. The sole purpose I began Project WOC is because of the things I experienced growing up as a person of color,” said Mazzi. She won’t let you forget where she’s from and what she stands for: she’s a 15-year-old Ugandan-American living in the San Francisco Bay Area that’s passionate about activism and advocation.

Besides being a youth activist, an advocate, and an aspiring entrepreneur, Mazzi is also still a normal teenager. She’s in fandoms, she binge-watches TV shows, and she’s had her Wattpad phase.

“When I was 12, I tried to write fanfiction,” she explained. “A lot of teenaged Wattpad writers influenced my style of writing. I never even finished a single chapter, though.”

But she’s changed plenty since that phase. She no longer tries to write—“or attempt to write”—novels or extensive fiction projects. “I have been contributing to magazines lately, ergo my work as of late has been articles.”

Though she’s always been a lover of literature, her style and the genre of writing have both grown and changed as she has throughout the years. When she was younger, she’d make up stories whenever she could, often stealing inspiration from writers like Judy Blume.

At the end of the day, the Bay Area native has one goal: to educate people. “I might only be 15, but I have learned a thing or two these past couple of years and all I want to do is share it with those who are yet to come to terms with it.”

Stay up to date with Christina on her Instagram and see Project WOC here.